Radar speed trailers (also, referred to as “radar trailers,” “speed trailers” or “radar speed signs”) are portable devices that capture vehicle speed as the vehicle passes the device. Typically, the device also includes a speed indicator and the posted speed limit. Radar speed trailers typically include optional data collection units that store data detected by the radar devices. The stored data may be downloaded into a computer for analysis, charting, and the like.
Intuitive Control Systems, LLC (d/b/a All Traffic Solutions (ATS)), State College, Pa., sells a radar speed sign called SPEEDsentry™ Radar Speed Display. The SPEEDsentry display uses a radar antenna to measure the speed of an approaching vehicle and then displays the speed. The SPEEDsentry is sold with a standard programming features included and a number of other optional features, including a data logging feature. The data logging feature will keep a running log in local memory of every speed measured by the radar and the time of the measurement. The radar sensor takes a periodic reading. All readings are saved to the unit's internal memory. The user of the SPEEDsentry periodically downloads this data directly to a Laptop/PC using a cable or indirectly via a PDA. This prior art method is illustrated in FIG. 1. The data file is given a name and stored. Generally the name would indicate a location where the data was taken and the date of data collection. From this data, the number of vehicles that have been detected by the SPEEDsentry can be estimated, and this information could also be stored. The vehicle count is almost always different than the number of radar measurements taken because a single vehicle will usually be detected multiple times. The vehicle count is determined from this data using a proprietary algorithm. The analysis software provided by ATS to view the data allows a user to look at one week of data at a time.
The downloaded data is very useful for those responsible for traffic control. In addition to the supplied proprietary software, the data can be imported into a spreadsheet program and manipulated and analyzed. Some of the useful information than can and is often obtained from the downloaded data includes:
1. Average speed (overall and for specific time periods/windows)
2. 85th percentile speed
3. Maximum speeds can be determined by sorting the data on the spreadsheet
4. Road volume per time window
5. Car volume per speed range for each time window
Traffic managers (e.g., law enforcement) are able to make appropriate decisions for traffic control and speed enforcement based on reports derived from the data. Such decisions can include where and when to provide police law enforcement. It can also provide road traffic volumes for making other volume dependent decisions.
While the downloaded data is very useful to customers for monitoring traffic and making appropriate decisions, there are significant drawbacks. These include the cumbersome nature of collecting the data, storing numerous data files in an organized fashion to allow searching at a later time, analyzing the data for trends and combining data from separate data files. In particular, each time a customer downloads data, it is placed in a separate file. If a customer has multiple SPEEDsentrys, each SPEEDsentry generates data files for each location where it recorded data. It is complicated to collect and organize this data and keep track of the multiple files. Furthermore, it is complicated to make comparisons between separate data sets. In sum, the current method of developing useful reports from the collected data is time-consuming and too complicated for the average traffic officer.